


How to be a House Plant

by Graphophobic



Category: Boyfriend to Death (Visual Novels)
Genre: Amputation, Canon-Typical Violence, Captivity, Horror, Other, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-05-25 20:13:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14984732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Graphophobic/pseuds/Graphophobic
Summary: Lawrence promised to keep you forever. Sometimes, you make it really difficult for him to keep that promise.A series of follow up scenarios for the ending “Lawrence kept you.”





	1. Suffer Gracefully

**Author's Note:**

> I actually started writing these around the time BTD2 was released but kept them to myself and seldom wrote them. Recently, I returned to the concepts and, now that the hype has died off, I feel a bit more comfortable posting them. 
> 
> I am 99% sure that, in a realistic world, the MC wouldn’t have survived Lawrence’s back alley amputation. But BTD isn’t a realistic world so !!! Roll with me.
> 
> The main character is called Clover (as this route is influenced by the name) but it won’t be very prevalent and I’m keeping the main character as gender neutral as possible. Also, this MC didn’t sex Lawrence when given the option in canon but there will be sexually explicit, noncon content in some of the chapters, as well as canon typical violence. Viewer discretion strongly advised.

Those first few weeks had felt like years.

A hazy blur of crying, panicked gasps, unable to draw in enough air to breathe as your limbs burned in the flames. Invisible limbs, constantly burning like they were there. But the more you reached out with that phantom hand, the more it burned and the harder you choked on the lump in your throat. Tears and saliva painted your face as you struggled to breathe, but reaching up to wipe them away, to try to collect yourself for even a second, made your blood run cold and your heart drop all over again.

Your arms. They weren’t burning. They were gone. Gone, gone.

But you could swear you felt them, they ached. Constantly ached. You could close your eyes and pretend they were still there, brace yourself to stand-

THUD. The dead weight of your limbless torso hits the floor by Lawrence’s bed, hot white pain shooting everywhere you never imagined. Why won’t your limbs work? Why are they burning!? You can’t help the scream that escapes your lips.

Every time this happened, his arms would come around you in a firm embrace. You struggled, always struggled despite the fire and the pain. Everything hurt, everything hurt because of this man. You punch, you kick, you-

Don’t have any limbs. His head is resting on your shoulder; he’s gently cooing assurances, unaffected by your croaking muted noises, by the nubs you’re weakly moving, lethargic with pain, trying to reach him with ghostly arms.

Arms that lay in the sink across the room, rotting in a twisted pretzel that can’t quite fit into the small space.

Despite his firm grasp around your waist, keeping your back pressed against his chest as he props you up while sitting on the floor, he’s gently brushing your hair from your sweaty, matted forehead. Your ears ring with pain and you almost can’t hear him over your own choked breaths, murmuring, “Shh, I know it hurts… You need to wait a little longer. It’s only been three hours since your last dose... I need you to calm down for a little longer.”

Across the room, you swear that your arm is waving at you. Taunting. Dizzying nausea sweeps over you at the sight and you groan through the gasping. Trying to be quiet.

He’ll gag you if you aren’t quiet. It makes it that much harder to breathe.

“I’ll take care of you.” Lawrence said this, over and over during that first week. He runs his hand through your hair, working through knots with his fingers, while the other tightens around your waist, hoisting you back onto his bed. He sits with you, holding you and stroking your hair rhythmically. You whimper and he’s drying your face with the sheets of his bed.

As much as he hurt you, the warmth against your neck and pressure of his arm around your waist helps. You can be calm. Take deep breaths. It burns. But you’re not burning alone.

One more hour. Then he’ll give you more numbing tea, warmth that seeps through your core and dims the flames to a dull, sleepy ember.

Focus on breathing. Gasping breaths, choked sobs, muffled on your tongue. Focus on contact. The way your t-shirt clings to your sweaty body. His hand carding through your hair.

Don’t think about the hardness, pressed against the small of your back as he holds you. How he tells you to be quiet, and then toys with the stitches holding together flesh and bone like a loose thread on a sweater, sharp twinges of pain ringing in your ears. You don’t know why he gets like this. He probably doesn’t know either.

It’s always difficult to tell where crying from the pain stops and crying from the horror begins. Did that wave of nausea hit you because of the overwhelming ache or from the terror as he tenderly (so tenderly) noses your neck while his hips rock against you? The knot in your throat keeps you from protesting.

You’re exhausted but your heart won’t stop racing, panicked and uneasy. His hand rests in the middle of your chest, pressed flat against your sternum. Holding you against him.

Feeling the blood pump through your body.

“There’s something that happens in rabbits…” He’s murmuring against your ear, calmly and quietly. A toneless lullaby. “When they’re caught in a snare. They panic. Break their limbs trying to escape. Panic more when they can’t… Then they die.” The way he talks is like he’s whispering sweet nothings, his hips still rock slowly, lazily. The dissonance disorients you.

“The stress makes their heart explode,” he explains, lips ghosting against the skin below your ear. Instinctively, you look down, hyper aware of the hand against your heart now. Trying to sink into your chest, caress the thrumming organ. Soothe it. “Caught and trapped… The delicate rhythm hitting a deadly crescendo…”

Another choked sob wrecks through you, heart thundering in your ears. Lawrence doesn’t elaborate, sighing against your neck.

Those first few weeks, you don’t remember a lot. There isn’t a lot to remember. Tea and reassurances and burning limbs and nauseating notions of comfort.

In those first few weeks, you often dreamt of dead rabbits.


	2. Deadheading

> _Deadheading_  
>  _The gardening term used for the removal of faded or dead flowers from plants. Deadheading is generally done both to maintain a plant’s appearance and to improve its overall performance._

How easy it is to adapt to the unimaginable.

It takes three months. You’re drugged for a lot of the first one, healing. Fighting infection. Gagged when overdose is a risk and Lawrence needs to leave you alone but you just _won’t stop making noise_. God, he’s been so careful. You knew he often left for work but he always timed giving you whatever drowsy tea concoction to make you most lethargic when unattended. Consequently, it felt like he never left.

The attention was overwhelming.

By the second month, you weren’t in as much pain but you were tired and hungry. It was like you had been running for a year and collapsed unwillingly, panic still coursing (running… no legs – sometimes you cry from the absurdity, that your brain still provides these insensitive analogies). Your body had finished fighting, passed the threat of tipping over the threshold of life and death, and all the old demands it had made of you for nourishment suddenly depended on another’s whims.

After over a month of just wheezing and crying and groaning, animalistic noises motivated by pain and distress, even Lawrence looked startled when you said something comprehensible. A hoarse, whispery request for something to drink, to soothe your parched throat.

Of course, he had to have been feeding you _something_ but you don’t know how often or how much actually stayed down. A blur of spoon fed substances and various teas, carefully measured nutrients to sustain your healing form. Whatever it was, whatever he gave you, you had lost a lot more weight than your limbs alone could account for.

The third month came. You were immobile, stitched flesh still tender and thrumming with pain, but lucid. Aware.

Lawrence kept you in the bathroom tub when he was asleep or away. No need to worry about that flimsy possibility of escape. Muffled noise. Convenient for cleaning up any messes you make. It was a humiliating reality. A pillow under your head was a merciful gesture but the containment was suffocating. Claustrophobic and humid. Maddening. You tried to sleep as much of the time away as you could.

Nightmares would keep you up.

The only thing worse than the nightmares were your waking thoughts.

What if you had been stronger? There were so many opportunities, right back to that first meeting. Maybe you should have gone back to the bar when he threw that first punch. Surely, the bartender would’ve been equipped to handle Lawrence. Why didn’t you scream? Even after that, when you were strapped down to the chair, you should’ve been meaner. Less accommodating to the man that kidnapped you. Spat in his face. Tore his knife from his hand as he freed you to go to the washroom, stabbed at him.

Hell, you even freed yourself when he was sleeping, vulnerable. What were you thinking? The perfect opportunity to escape. The perfect opportunity to kill him. To end the nightmare. He had clung to his pillow, eyes clenched shut against the gray day. A monster with his own monsters. It didn’t look like a peaceful sleep.

Tears well up in your eyes. Something in you was drawn to comfort despite everything, to lie down beside him. Give him a warm body to hold in his arms.

You can ponder and reminisce and question all you want but you can’t deny something in you ached when you saw him, fitful and uneasy in his rest. A pull, a desire to reassure. Something about him seemed broken. After all he’d done to you, you felt broken too. There was something so safe about the idea that you were both victims, curled in each other’s arms. Seeking mutual warmth, a tiny flame of understanding in a cold and cruel reality.

So wrong. It’s so wrong. You weren’t safe.

The whistling of a kettle draws you from your reverie, back into your segmented body.

The what-ifs and fantasies are just that. Escapism. What could have happened doesn’t matter anymore because of what did happen. The consequences of your humanity are just something that you need to live with. It’s a bitter pill you’ve been forcing on yourself recently. After months of feeling like death, feeling close to it, you survived.

You survived.

Footsteps layer over the high keen of the whistling kettle. Lawrence will take you out soon.

For a thoughtless moment, you try to push yourself up to see over the tub’s edge and hiss as your tender, healing flesh is pressed too hard into the porcelain surface. Normally, you’d wait for him to enter the bathroom. Rinse you off. Hoist you up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Dress you for the few hours you two spent together before he left for work.

There was a routine you had settled in. Designated times for watering and feeding. Petting and checking the wounds. He spoke to you and the plants in the same tone of voice. That’s what you began to understand yourself as. A high maintenance plant but a plant all the same.

A four leaf Clover that had all its leaves plucked, like a child playing loves-me or loves-me-not.

And he loved you. Mutilated and maintained.

What kind of luck was that?

He would never expect you to try to move so soon. Probably never expected you to actively try to move on your own ever again. Maybe that was why, even after shooting pain went through you at the contact of your arms with the tub, you still tried to sit up. To prove something to yourself. To him.

Staying still for so long was taking its toll on you. Energy with nowhere to go. Can’t fidget without limbs.

A sporadic moment. Trying to keep your arm nubs completely still, you pressed your head back against the pillow, coiling your body. Then, you forced your head forward and, with it, your entire torso.

Panic flew through you as you tried to catch yourself with arms you didn’t have. Helpless, your momentum left you soaring right into the tub’s faucet. Coppery taste and a bloom of cold pain against your teeth. Your torso had arched uncomfortably, the healing wounds of your thighs pressed into the porcelain beneath. Moving was impossible. Vaguely, you think you yelled in pain, you were gasping now. In any case, something made Lawrence storm into the small room angrily, eyes wild.

Then, the storm disappeared when your eyes met, confusion taking over his features as he knelt beside you. Hair had fallen into your face from your sudden movement. It grew a lot in the last few months. It was almost as long as Lawrence’s now, shaggy. As your eyes met his, taking in your situation, a wave of exhaustion overwhelmed you. That one impulsive move had drained all your energy.

Lawrence tilted his head as he stared before lifting his hand toward your face. Where you may have flinched, tiredness left you unresponsive, face pressed awkwardly between the faucet and tile wall.

The hand tenderly brushed the hair from your face, behind your ear. His expression was almost reverent, the back of his hand trailing down the side of your face. Gently, gently tracing your features.

Flinching back when tears trailed down your cheek.

“You- … Why did you try to move?” his tone was too coloured with concern to sound like a scolding. Carefully, not waiting for a response you wouldn’t give, he grasped your neck in one hand and your waist in the other. Your pulse spiked nervously at the contact, erratic as he put pressure on it.

He was adjusting you slowly, moving you to lean back against the tub’s edge. You never looked away from his eyes, locked onto his blue gaze. The hand at your waist retracted.

At your neck, the grasp remained. Tightening. The reverence left his eyes and he became god again.

The fingernail of his thumb teased the line of your throat slowly, moving from your trachea to your chin in a lazy stroke. The nail dug into your skin on the way down, most likely leaving an angry red streak in its wake. You swallowed helplessly.

“Your hair has grown a lot…” The nail drags across your neck as his hand travels to the base of your neck. You can’t help the whimper that leaves you as he lingers at the pulse, nail digging in harder. Replace the nail with a knife and you’d be bleeding out, filling the tub red. That teetering line of life and death.

Was this punishment? You don’t know.

The fingers trail through your hair, catching on knots and combing through them slowly. Lawrence looks pensive.

“I like being able to see your eyes,” he whispers, leaning in close. “It’s… I don’t usually feel that way. But when you don’t talk, your eyes help me understand. If you’re tired… in pain… too much tea…” His hand drifts toward your pulse again. He didn’t dig in the nail this time. Thumb stroking the red skin rhythmically. Apologetically? You couldn’t be sure.

“Your hair keeps falling in front of your face though... I’m going to cut it.” Startled, you blink as he leans back and strides out of the bathroom. Your mouth suddenly felt dry, throat tight. Was he going to give you a haircut? The skin of your neck itched at the thought.

Nervously, you glanced between the door and your surroundings. As much as you’d love to get up and lock the door, you had no choice but to wait for him to return. The faucet you fell into gleamed with a smear of red and you quickly brushed your tongue along your teeth, grateful you hadn’t broken one. The sound of rummaging sounded from the open doorway, like he was looking through a drawer.

Then, the clattering stopped.

_Snip, snip._

The ominous noise of scissors opening and closing made the hairs of your neck stand. Gaze fixed to the doorway, Lawrence awkwardly stepped back in, holding the scissors uncertainly against his chest. They were older, sturdy steel with a little rust colouring the axis that held the bladed pieces together. A wave of nausea and fear suddenly overwhelms you, flight response sending your heart hammering.

You really _really_ don’t want this man near your neck with a pair of scissors. But there was nothing you could do about it.

Warily, you stare at him as he stands by the door, hesitating. Looking vacant. Staring through you.

If things were different, you would probably ask him if he was alright. Gently, with understanding and concern. As it were, that was the kindness that got you into this entire mess. So you remained silent, lips in a tight line and gaze fixed on the tool in his hand.

Then, he smiled shyly.

“I’ve never cut someone else’s hair before,” he said. There was a light amusement in his tone, a hidden irony, mingling with uncertainty at the novelty of the situation. Slowly, he knelt by the tub again, thoughtfully looking around the small room. “But I do cut my own hair. This is just a little… a little different.” Scissors still in hand, he grasps your sides, the cold metal making your skin jolt. Carefully, he turns you around so you face the tiled wall, the back of your head making contact with his shoulder. An uneasy breath hits your ear.

Slowly, his hands trail up your sides, the cool metal innocently working its way up, over your ribcage and around to your shoulder blade. Hair is brushed to the side, over your shoulder, as the scissors caress vertebrae and raised tissue.

Nostalgic trauma. Familiar wounds. It’s funny how he always comes back to your spine. Fascination bringing him to carve the scarred skin over and over these number of months. Sometimes while you were so out of it that the pressure of his knife felt like love bites. You wouldn’t be surprised if that spot got infected more often than the healing remains of your arms and legs.

_Snip._ A primal flinch caused your head to jerk forward, almost making your entire body to fall. Lawrence’s hand caught you by the shoulder before that could happen but grief overcame you; the ghostly muscle memory of your own arms keeping your balance had reminded you of that loss once more. A sob clawed its way out of your throat, shock and despair and pain all at once, and you felt him stroke your hair, letting out quiet hushes.

“You can’t keep trying to move,” he admonished, threatening and vulnerable all at once. Distantly, you heard water running. Wistfully, he continued, “I know it hurts… It’s not fair. You weren’t meant for something like this. Fate had other plans for you…”

Deep breaths. Steadily, evenly, you tried to breathe. Shakily exhaling as the scissors sheathed open and Lawrence began his first few cuts.

_Snip. Snip._

“It’s… I still think about the night we met… how lucky it all was,” he murmured, thoughtful and rambling. Maybe he didn’t realize he was talking at all. Plant talk. Loose strands tickled your back as they fell. “Our threads… it was a cat’s cradle that night. One string was pulled and Ren’s path strayed away. Ours still connected loosely… I didn’t mean to tangle them then. But I’m glad I did.”

_Snip snip snip._ It had been a long time since you thought about Ren, the other one at the bar. If you had yelled, maybe Ren would have heard? He didn’t leave much earlier than you. Another variable that doesn’t matter anymore. Another variable that will plague you with the possibilities.

“You’re perfect,” he sighed, forehead dipping for just a moment to make contact with your hair, holding onto your shoulder. “First impressions are hard… But you understand. Right? You do. I’d never met someone like that… I thought Ren maybe but…” The grip on your shoulder flexed anxiously. “I still don’t know why he left. Everything seemed alright online… It was nice. Really nice. The connection was easy, simple… He understood… I thought…” Confusion and hurt and betrayal.

Sometimes this happened too, when talking to his plants. Following a tangential stream of consciousness, when his thoughts strayed to darker feelings, they quietly crept up and stained his tranquility. Overthinking, overanalyzing, always negative. It wasn’t often. Sometimes it was a recent problem, a work conflict or stressful outing, trying desperately to think of anything else but always giving into that pull.

Other times, you felt the vague notions of history, something private and repressed bleeding into the present. The plants helped. You helped.

_Snip snip._

Unwillingly, you help. With a deep, shaky breath, Lawrence composes himself, continuing his task. Plant care. Distractions. Hair tickles your skin all over, falling around you haphazardly. Your shoulders, your chest, your hips. It itches. You can’t do anything about it, biting your tongue to distract from the sensation.

“I’m not sure anymore,” he whispered, using one hand to turn your head as he snipped. “But you’re all I need. And I’m all you need. Everything worked out better than I ever would have thought. Could have dared to hope.” The words wash over you numbly. Fate had other plans for you. If only you didn’t go out that night, if only you had fought, if only you weren’t so ideal, if only…

The hand holding your shoulder moved to your chin, poised to adjust the tilt of your head. Your first warning was the too firm pressure of his hand over your mouth.

The second was the cold metal against the cartilage of your ear. Sound too close.

_Sniii-_

“MMF-” Your shocked scream was muffled and your struggle muted as the firm hand on your mouth held you in place against Lawrence’s chest. Slowly, agonizingly, the blades of the scissors tore through the outer rim of your ear. Consistent speed, mounting pain.

“Shh, it’s alright.” Lawrence cooed into the same ear he was torturously cutting a line through. Your head was pounding, body buzzing with blinding pain and adrenaline and shock. Millimeter by excruciating millimeter, your distressed noises were swallowed up by his hand.

Through it all, he whispered sweet nothings.

“We need this,” he informed gently, conviction as steady as the radiating agony. “Sharing these moments… it’s beautiful. I don’t ever want to hurt you. But this isn’t the same when you’re numbed. So responsive when you’re lucid.” The scissors paused and he pressed his lips to your sweaty temple. Barely a kiss. In the momentary break, your watery vision spots the red stream flowing down your body and toward the tub’s drain. When speaks, his lips moved against your skin. “I never cared for the responses before you… Grating, noisy. I just wanted them to be quiet. The warmth wasn’t worth the struggle, the fight, the screaming, ugly tears and vulgarity…”

God, you wish you could fight. Your exhausted body could hardly flinch and his strong, suffocating grip prevented even that.

“You were never like that,” he sighed, blissful. “Inviting, warm. Braced the discomfort, kept it all contained…” His grip slacked, hand trailing from your gasping mouth to your neck. Returning to your scratched throat, pressing in his thumb with too much pressure again. Caged pulse beating against his finger with all the violent despair you kept contained behind gritted teeth and a bitten tongue.

“I love that about you. You’re so good for me…” A startled, strangled noise scraped out of your hoarse throat as the scissors closed fast with a final _SNIP_ , the sound tactile in its pain. The scissors clatter as Lawrence places them on the nearby edge. Everything sounds muffled on your right side, ear pulsing from the pain. It felt like he cut off your entire ear, you couldn’t imagine any less from that vicious, concentrated suffering.

Yet, sitting in his palm before your eyes was only a thin sliver of skin, the angry red edge staining his fingers. Another piece of you he’s taken without warning. Without permission.

He whispers to you, god in a confessional.

“I love you… I love this… I love you…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters won't be sequential for the most part. Loosely connected one shots of situations from here on.
> 
> Any feedback is greatly appreciated <3


	3. Nightblooming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A daily schedule. Shakily consistent. A desperate grasp at control. Attempting to create meaning in a meaningless, repetitive loop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: Rape/Non-con scene occurs during 4am.
> 
> Stay safe and thank you for your support!

> 8pm

The sun sets. Sometimes you sleep through the day. Sometimes you’re already awake. You only know the time because of the lamps, set to timers. Left slightly ajar, the door blocks the sunlight throughout the day with its angle, leaving the bathroom dark enough for your rest. One of the timed lamps sits to the right of the door, shining into the room precisely at 8pm.

Like a plant, you slowly turn your face toward the light.

> 9pm

Lawrence is slow to wake. Auditory cues rouse him. The hum of the lamps, the muted sounds of traffic and city night life outside the window, a phone alarm set so quietly that it merely suggests waking. Sometimes you hear the somber, eerie music he chooses to wake up to and wonder how the subtlety doesn’t lull him further.

Sensitive to the noises. Even gentle ones. You’re beginning to understand. Relate.

All you can do is lie there in your tub until you hear the tell-tale sounds of his approach.

The creak of the bed. The diminishing shuffle. A keening kettle’s crescendo, layered with the percussion of drawers opening and clinking of bowls and cups and spoons. The ascending sounds of footsteps.

A prelude to the orchestral suite of your captivity.

The waking greeting varies from day to day. One day, he comes in prepared, t-shirt and shorts in one hand, a cloth to lather your body in the other. The next day, he mutely, solemnly moves you to the other room, not bothering to dress you before taking his own shower. Another day, he avoids your gaze and closes the shower curtain in a rush, anxiety fighting a losing war against the pressure of his own bodily functions. Shame and embarrassment seems to stick to him for the rest of the day, stilting the routine with tension. The hypocrisy of his humiliation against your own doesn’t affect you anymore.

Today, he brings in two cups of tea with a shy smile. Wearily, you strain a smile in return.

He seems happy today.

Perhaps today will be a good day.

> 10pm

On his bed, in his clothes, back against the corner. You have a full view of the room. It makes you feel less nervous and you wonder if that is a small mercy on Lawrence’s part. Not that there were many other places you could be placed that wouldn’t be in the way.

Lawrence drifts around the room, attending to the plants. Watering, using special drops on one, breaking off dead foliage from another. A few weeks ago, he planted the seeds that had been in an orange he fed you. Today, a number of small leafy sprouts crowded the pot, sitting in the centre of the table of plants.

Somehow, the small plants made you feel happy.

That was one thing you could appreciate. As terrible, as horrible and inhumane and wrong as the situation was, you could find things to be grateful for. The greenery of the room, the window’s view of city lights. When Lawrence was in a good mood, you could sometimes pretend. Sometimes.

You were tortured, maimed, and loved.

When he was done with all the green plants, he approached you.

“I’m making eggs and toast, is that alright?” Before you make any move to answer, he strokes your face and turns to the kitchen. Sometimes you wondered if you actually had an option. What would he do if you said you didn’t want eggs and toast? You wondered if he would be upset or angry or would even care but you’d probably never find out.

It was rare that you willingly broke your mutism, usually on a basis of neglect. Lawrence doesn’t always remember you’re more high maintenance than his other plants. Or maybe he does, and he just likes to force you into talking every so often, scratchy and soft. If your stomach doesn’t make noise as it gnaws at itself, then you find yourself compelled to speak.

Starving is a different kind of ache than the abuse you go through and one you can readily avoid. It’s still hard to tell whether he forgets to feed you on purpose or not but, when you speak up, he reacts. Apologetic and docile.

Every time you do, you guiltily glance toward a neglected fern in the corner of the room. Voiceless, the leaves have become a sickly, crispy brown over the last few weeks, parched beyond rescue.

Unlucky.

> 11pm

On certain days, Lawrence goes to work at this time.

He’d pack you back up before leaving, undressing you and taking you back to the tub. You wish he’d leave you out. But you’re still not used to not having limbs. Not that it would make a difference to him but for you, the tub is a safe place to struggle in. You’ve started to practice while alone, learning new muscles, reclaiming what’s left your body for yourself.

But Lawrence doesn’t know that. Shouldn’t know it.

He leaves the light on in the bathroom. Before, when you were stitched healing flesh, always in pain, always making noise, he’d give you tea before he left. It kept you quiet, stuffed your head with cotton.

It also made things twitch in the corner of your vision; the walls pulsate in a red haze, shadows threatening. Rotten smells and the sensation of insects crawling across your body, too vivid for hallucinations. Unlike dreams, the sensory memory stays with you for days.

About two weeks ago, you turned down his tea, unwavering. Hesitantly, he conceded, suspicious but… with a semblance of trust.

You could tell he was nervous about it because each day, he came home and immediately rushed to your room. Palpable relief rolling off him when everything was as it should be.

Unbalanced, jittery trust.

When he didn’t work or go out, Lawrence spent time with you.

Sharing the small bed, he idled on his laptop, curled against you like a cat seeking warmth. You often wondered if that was your main appeal; a warm body. Quiet, compliant, domesticated. Objectified, in the most literal understanding of the word. Though, sometimes he jerked into awareness, as though he had forgotten you were capable of shifting or making noise, and became timid for a handful of minutes. Shy again, anxious again, unsure how to deal with another sentient being.

It’d be so much easier for the both of you if you were just a plant.

> 12am

When Lawrence isn’t around, you move in your containment until you’re exhausted. All you want to do is sleep and you’re sick of sleeping.

When Lawrence is home, midnight is not a remarkable time. New day, same life. Times presses onward while you remain in stasis, staring out the window. Lawrence is making some more tea, the laptop sitting on the other side of the bed from you.

Early on, the window always seemed to hold the potential for salvation. If you could somehow draw attention, break it, bang your head on the glass until someone saw… But it was clearly not an option. There was no way to break the window without flinging your body through the glass and plummeting seven or eight stories to your death. You doubt you would have the strength to even do that and then what? Lawrence finds you on the floor, a bruised lump on a broken table. Would he kill you?

Would he make your containment worse?

Even though you laid those ideas to rest, you found your gaze drawn toward the street regardless. People. In pairs, alone, crossing the road. Not once do they stop to look up at your window. And why would they? They walk along, heading to bars and parties. Home. Each of them, a life connected to other lives. Once upon a time, you were like that. It feels like a long time ago, a different life entirely that you look back on like an outsider. The concept of such a normal existence doesn’t feel real anymore. As the figures continue to move, you wonder if they ever thought about the possibilities of what happened to you.

Would any of them ever believe the torture and captivity that they were casually strolling by? Would anyone living in this building hazard a guess at the secrets Lawrence had?

Probably not. Time presses onward.

Back when you were one of them, you know you had some intrusive thoughts about the possibilities. The world is a scary place. If you walked on a street just like the one outside the window, you’d probably eye the other people. A hand in someone’s pocket may hide a knife. Stay in the street lights. Threatening doors down dirty alleys called themselves pawn shops and thrift stores. Were there false walls, hiding other operations? Something more sinister? You looked up where you wanted to go, didn’t wander far.

You were one of the careful ones. Certainly more careful than the teenagers biking across the road, cars honking and throwing middle fingers. More wary than the lone woman in her short dress, rounding the corner on her phone. More aware than the jogger wearing his large, expensive headphones, passing by dark alleyways without a second glance. Compared to them, you were safe. You should have been safe.

Yet here you are.

Fate had other plans for you.

> 1am

Another unremarkable hour passes.

A spider, legs too long, scales the wall on the other side of the room. You watch it make its home in the corner.

Methodical web weaving. Threads crossing and uncrossing.

> 2am

The time blurs together. On the bed or in the tub. It doesn’t matter.

Lawrence floats. The bed, the table, taking a shower, taking a nap in the crook of your shoulder.

You lay awake, in whatever position he left you in. Hyper aware of contact.

The thought of even more sleep sickens you. So you refuse to close your eyes.

> 3am

A water bottle is tipped against your lips, the life-giving liquid fending off a headache that’s been creeping in from behind your eyes. Lawrence looks at you like a scientist, the idle detachment only blinking away when you meet his gaze.

He flushes, averting his gaze. Fumbling with the bottle cap. He’d forgotten your sentience again.

That was fine. It used to upset you, to know he had forgotten. That your humanity wasn’t a thought in his mind until it stared him in the face. It made your heart race, screaming in your chest like it wanted to be heard, to remind you that despite it all, you were here and living and human. If you cried, he’d either be concerned and try to help you or get stressed out and avoid you until you stopped. The difference depended on his mood that day. Doting or flighty.

Either way, it didn’t help.

Nowadays, you’ve gotten used to it. You don’t get as emotional anymore. Maybe you should be worried about that but it helps. It helps both of you. Despite his tension, Lawrence relaxes as you remain quiet, unchanged. Eventually, he meets your gaze again shyly. Uncertainly.

“Ah… Are you still thirsty?” he asks, holding the half-empty bottle toward you.

A moment of consideration, staring at the bottle. After a handful of seconds, you respond by shaking your head.

“Right…” He seems dazed, vacant for a moment. Then recovers, standing up from the bed, hand shaking as he leans over to brush some loose locks away from your face.

You watch him turn, walking toward a tree sitting in a large pot on the other side of the room.

He pours the rest of the bottled water into that pot.

> 4am

In the early hours, Lawrence gets restless.

You don’t know what it is about this time. The sun isn’t yet a thought to the sky yet, and the ambient noises of the surrounding apartments are quietest at this hour. Static. Muffled. The hum of the lamps, Lawrence’s shuffling, your breathing – it feels like a sin, to break the silence.

This is when Lawrence worships you.

You thought it wouldn’t happen today. This part has never been consistent. Predicting patterns, making a concept of what the routine means – this part has always been elusive. On bad days, on good days. Months will go by without any motions, months of casual and innocent care and suddenly, every night for two weeks he’ll make use of your body.

The only semblance of pattern you’ve found here was that he gets restless the earlier it becomes. But try as you may, you don’t think you will ever know exactly what triggers this. What you do to earn his violent physical attention one day and scorn it the next.

It was a good day. Yet, his breath shudders against your ear.

A new wound burns below your sternum.

One of his hands covers your mouth, catching your pained noises while the other teases the raw flesh. Blood stains his sheets, running over your sides. He never seems to mind.

If anything, it excites him more.

“You’re so beautiful,” he sighs, hand trailing fresh blood up the centre of your chest. Your breathing is laboured, your pulse under his bloody fingers. “I never thought… alive, living, it would be so… addicting…”

Suffocating intimacy. His tender touches cause so much pain, a body that doesn’t feel like your own because he does what he wishes with it and you can’t fight. You’re too tired, the adrenaline doesn’t even do anything to you anymore. You don’t mean to vocalize the hurt, the noises just escape.

It’s a strange level of awareness and disconnection.

You feel it all, you physically react, it hurts, but your mind is numb to the terror as it happens, running a detached, clinical mental inventory. Heart racing, blood painting your torso, throat hurts, everything hurts, hot breath and contact. His hand moves away from your mouth and he maintains eye contact as he does so, a look telling you to stay quiet. Is it a trusting look? A warning glare? Either way, the only sounds you can make anymore are gasping breaths.

Through it all though, he has never once kissed you.

Even when his fingers dip down, trail toward your pelvis. Hesitantly.

“Are you doing alright? I’m going to… If it’s alright…” An unaware mockery of timid romance. It always seemed like it. He would ask you if it was okay, whether he could keep going or not, his breath ghosting across your skin. Sometimes his lips would follow his breath, memorizing your collarbone with a light tickling touch. You would whimper but you didn’t say yes.

You also didn’t say no. Wouldn’t dare to.

On a good day, you could sometimes close your eyes and pretend. His sadism lacked a malicious edge, like your pain was an unfortunate but necessary consequence of his rituals. It made it easy to believe that he would protect you from everything but himself. Sometimes, you felt like you could understand. Like you could forgive.

Hot breath on your neck, cool fingers between your legs. Unwillingly, you shudder at the caresses and feel him twitch in his sweatpants, pressed against your side.

Were you in a very forgiving mood today? It’s hard to say.

Too many emotions and feelings still go through you when it happens. The anxiety exhausts you, the physiological arousal turns your stomach into a nauseous, twisted mess, and the hope that it won’t happen again ebbs to the despair of reality when he gets that look in his eyes as he approaches.

It’s not always the same look either. Sometimes, he has the nervous air of a virgin teenager with their first love, flushed and uncertain but excited and pressing too forcefully for the innocent glare of his eye.

Other times, he looks like a predator that just stumbled on a free meal.

Rabbit in a snare. Limbs broken. Heart racing to a deadly peak.

Overwhelmed mentally and physically unable to reject, you focus on your breathing as best you can. Fingers brush the scarred wounds, stitched skin embedded with texture, making the flesh ache. Breathe in. Lawrence leans over you, one hand on your waist. Breathe out. He’s breathing too, heaving. Flushed, eyes dancing between the angry red wound on your stomach, the pink and healing cuts and the scars.

A living canvas.

“Beautiful,” he mutters to himself vacantly, one hand in his sweatpants. Lawrence has gotten better at making this bearable. The first handful of times this happened was rushed, unplanned and too fast and excruciating. It always started with a knife, carving new patterns into your skin. Eventually, it became heavy breathing and invasive touches, seeking out where your body was warmest, getting as close as physically possible and searching for the fastest release.

Those first few times, you screamed so loud he almost smothered you with his pillow. His erection would flag as the man upstairs angrily banged on the floorboards overhead. Too nervous to continue, too pent up to relax.

To keep you quiet, he’s learned to take things slower. You whimper, biting your tongue as he eases his bloody fingers in slowly. Eyes fixated on where he invades your body. Fascinated.

You feel sick. An involuntary sob bubbles up your throat as he presses in deeper, stretching his fingers. Lawrence spares a glance upward but quickly returns his focus to his task. One hand in his pants, the other between your legs (what remains of them); the rhythm between them synced.

Tears. You don’t want to cry but you do. It blurs your vision, smearing Lawrence’s anxiously lustful expression out of sight. The fingers are gone and you feel him lean over you, his head dipping into the crook below your chin as one of his hands moves under you, lifting your lower body.

Another sob as you feel him press against your entrance. He groans a warning, too far gone to verbalize, itching for relief. God it hurts it hurts. The breach is too much, there’s too much.

You wish he’d stab you, cut you, finger your wounds and break your bones instead. Anything would be better than this, the internal pressure. He’s thrusting in and not stopping, never stops. Breaking the silence of the early morning lull, Lawrence is noisy when he’s like this. He groans, he whimpers, he pants and mutters. You hiccup, gasp, choke and gargle. The rhythm, the rough slide eased only with the sticky blood of your wounds, it presses too deeply, hits something inside that throws everything off. It’s like pleasure but twisted, unfamiliar; it’s like a bruise but too deep, unpleasant and disorienting and filthy, something that can only be reached when he does this.

Over and over, it gets battered and you can’t do anything but wait for it to end. Choking through each wave of repulsive, unwanted ache. The rhythm is punctuated by his nonsensical, gasping words.

“So warm, you’re…”

“It’s never like this, not since you.”

“I can’t- You’re so-”

Sometimes it’s easier to focus on the garbled words he lets out, try to ground yourself in deciphering their meaning. Often though, it is an upsetting reminder. None of it makes sense anyway. Only vague hints at past experiences and an understanding at just how _different_ and how _perfect_ and _good_ and _ideal_ you are.

It disturbs you because, for all you do, you’re barely a step up from being a corpse when he does this.

The pace becomes quicker. Jackrabbit. It never takes as long as it feels like it does. Mutually overwhelming, you whimper as his teeth dig into your collarbone, muffling desperate noises against your skin. There’s a fear in the noises he makes, something you would ponder about in your isolation sometimes. Like he’s scared of the moments that mount toward release, the primal takeover as his body works itself to the climax and his mind can’t maintain control.

Overheated and chilled, Lawrence finishes inside you, letting out a choked noise against your clavicle and clinging, pressing as close as he’s physically able. Throbbing pain radiates from your groin, from your sternum, from your neck.

Sweaty and bloody and aching.

Lawrence stays where he is for a long time, breathing in your skin. Pressing his rushing heartbeat against yours.

> 5am

It’s hard to feel clean anymore, even as Lawrence thoroughly lathers your abused body with a warm cloth. The rusty smell of blood and sweat just feels commonplace in this apartment. The gentle scent of lemon that comes off the cloth does little to mask it.

The red glow of the early morning shines through the wide window, lighting up the greenery.

Sometimes you cry as he cleans you. If he cleans you. Today you don’t. Your eyes sting and you can’t breathe through one of your nostrils but you simply lay exhausted, letting him clinically clean and explore without any movement. The cloth memorizes your bones through your skin, shoulder to collar, following your ribs.

The cloth brushes the area around your wound, making you wince. That seems to jolt him back into himself.

“O-Oh, sorry,” he mutters, a blush spreading across his cheeks as he averts his eyes. One timid moment and he meets your gaze again, shyly smiling and brushing hair away from your face.

“I, ah, I’ll have to stitch this,” he informs, examining the gouged skin pensively. Slowly, he returns the cloth to the area, making sure you brace yourself for the sting as he cleans the dried, flaky blood away. Gentle, fixated, Lawrence seems drained of the nervous energy that usually gathers in the air when he acknowledges you as a person.

After cleaning you with the cloth, he goes to get the medical needle, thread, and a bottle of some sort of disinfectant you’ve become familiar with over the course of your captivity here. He sits at your side and leans over you, examining how to go about repairing you.

Overcome with an impulse, you can’t help it as he leans over you. You speak.

“It hurts…” Lawrence whips his face around, staring at you wide-eyed. Nervous, you swallow, but repeat, holding his gaze. “It really hurts, Lawrence…”

“I-I…” Biting his lip, he guiltily looks away. Staring at your torn flesh. A strange shame seems to overcome him and he moves away from you. The action is unexpected and you watch mutely as he fumbles around the kitchen, shaken.

You’re fascinated by the reaction. Dopamine rush. Feel… a semblance of control.

Lawrence quickly returns to your side, more medical supplies in one hand and tea in another. The control you felt drains as soon as you see the delicate little cup balanced precariously in his hand, your exhausted body recoiling instinctively. The movement doesn’t go unnoticed.

“If it hurts, this will help,” he states firmly, frowning. The tears well in your eyes and you can’t help it, you shake your head and mutter quietly, barely a breath of a voice. No, please no no no no…

The pleas are ignored as he grabs your chin, forces your jaw open with bruising fingers. The ceramic is warm against your lips and the uncomfortably hot, bitter liquid hits the back of your throat. It doesn’t burn but the edge stings. You cough and splutter against the tonic as it pools in your head, drowns you in your resistance.

Lawrence is there, wiping your face with a cloth while you recover, gasp for breath. He looks annoyed. He looks tired.

"Just... close your eyes..."

Your head starts to cloud from the drugs and you’re still crying.

> 6am

The pressure of the needle draws you back from the darkness but not strongly. Perception is numbed sensory, muted colours and muffled noises.

Only musty, earthy smells remain undiluted. The smell of a forest should be a comfort. Nature. Safety.

You’re not safe.

Sometimes, the muffled noises come through. Lawrence's voice. Lawrence is talking.

“… New blooms… Nurturing rot… Cut away and encourage growth…”

Plant talk. You won’t remember it when you wake up.

Only the feelings.

> 7am

Lawrence prepares you for bed.

This time, you’re groggy and not all there but it must be like every other time. Lawrence undressing you, gaze either pointedly away or lingering, trailing along your bare skin. If you were as naïve as you had been before, you’d probably think he was looking on your body with something like sexual desire. Sometimes that would be correct but you’ve learned.

It’s your anatomy he’s fascinated with.

The bones under your flesh, the organs quietly operating within the cage of your ribs, breathing and sweating and bleeding. He loves what you are; a living organism, a complex collection of systems that work in tandem and automatically. In a way, he also loves  _who_ you are. Quietly existing, demure.

Broken in.

Dead weight, he lifts you with ease, his shoulder jammed uncomfortably into your abdomen. Back to the humid bathroom, to the cool porcelain against your skin and the lumpy pillow beneath your head. The world breathes around you. It’s probably the drugs; usually, the pulsating, hypersensitivity makes you feel claustrophobic.

Today, the pressure is comforting, in a way. Like a hug.

Your hair is touched and moved. A mouth against your torn ear.

“Sweet dreams,” Lawrence sighs, lingering. Nose close to your neck.

He smells like death again.

> 8am

And you fall into the darkness.

> 9am

And you sleep.

> 10am

And you sleep

> 1̻̺͎̤1̴̠͕̺ḁ͉̲̺̳͝m҉̠̣̱͈̰̜͔

And you dream.

> 1ͬ̚2̅̀̀̕pͬ̽̓ͬm͛͆̈́ͥͧ̐̾̕

Dead rabbits.

> 1̖̫̗̺͙̩̍p͕͚̘̻̅́͆̐̃̅͟m̺̙̞̺  
>  ͇͍̰̑ͯͭ̈́  
>  ̪̻̥̘̿̏̆̃̽2̨̳͖̯͇̇̃͆̇ͯͩ̄ṗ̉҉̦̫̻͔͍̜͎m͉̜͎̗͒ͤͯ̓ͮ̄͛

Backwards antlers.

The shadow has blue eyes.

> 3̞̣̦̾͑ͤp̿̅͑͊̂m͙͓̠̦̩̾ͨ̍́̃͐

It speaks of the river.

When will you have nice dreams again?

A waking nightmare, a sleeping nightmare.

You can’t win.

The river is vast and sterile. There’s an angel. He doesn’t particularly care for your presence.

He ponders about proximity, about osmosis and monsters as diseases. You’re not really listening as the world goes dark.

> 4̨̼͚͚͔̲̖͊p̘̰͓̰̠̠͐͂̄̎͛ͦ̀̄̄m̵ͪ̾̎ͫ͗̾̉͏̗̹̜͕̞̜  
>  ̝̞̍ͧ͋̀̿  
>  ̣͖̻ͪ̓͊ͫͧͨ͜5̧̼ͧͤ̊̈́p̡̪͖̭̰̺͙͗̒̏m̢ͩͭ̎͋ͮ҉̥̹̭  
>  ̠̲̩̫͈͙̄̿ͭ̅̌͌ͥͫ  
>  ͪͤ̉́̈́̆͛̚҉͔̬̱̻6́͐ͫ͋͐̌̎͏̙͉̫͓͍̱̭͡p̵̴̧̠͖̩̘̹̍m̫͚͓͇͍ͣͭ̐̔̌̇ͧͮ͝  
>  ̧̣̻͎̪̻̆̊̅ͤ̉  
>  ̵̨̝̫̗̫̼̞̘̍̑ͅͅ7̪̻͔̉ͣ͒̾ͭ̉͟p̪͖͍̯̲̫͇̪̓͂͛̕m̟͔̔ͩ̿ͯ

And you sleep.

> 8pm

Rinse and repeat.


End file.
